Four years and £4 million later Falkirk area’s landscape initiative is now complete

Between 2014 and 2018 members of the IFLI partnership, Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire councils, worked together and invested around £1.2 million in the programme.

This combined with a grant of £1.75 milllion from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and match funding from a range of other funders, enabled £4 million to be spent within the four years to achieve IFLI’s vision to conserve, protect and celebrate the natural, historic and cultural heritage of the Inner Forth landscape.

Over that time, which saw 1000 volunteers gave up 3680 days of their own time, 54 projects combined to deliver improvements and benefits for the people, wildlife, heritage and landscape of our local area.

An IFLI spokesperson said: “At Kinneil Estate, in Bo’ness, Central Scotland Green Network Trust upgraded paths, organised the planting of a new community orchard and improved the woodland, while Falkirk Community Trust and volunteers protected Kinneil Kirk and researched its past, and ran a weeklong celebration of the site’s wildlife.

“The lifespan of the IFLI also saw the RSPB create new wildflower meadows and, at Skinflats Nature Reserve, the RSPB created only the second managed realignment project in Scotland, which will improve the area’s flood-resilience, and provide new habitat for wildlife.

In Grangemouth, Buglife installed green roofs at Calachem and Carrongrange School, which will provide new habitats for pollinators, and improve the environment for pupils and staff, while at Zetland Park, IFLI ran a community event to digitally reconstruct the Grangemouth Town Clock.

“The IFLI partnership will continue to work together, in a new phase entitled Inner Forth Futures, to manage and maintain IFLI projects and to build on that work so we can continue to make the Inner Forth a better place.”